"Having good market intelligence is no longer optional in this day and age"
Rakesh Pabbi - Senior Partner
Each year, around 185,000 MBA students graduate in the U.S. alone. A significant portion of these students spend more than 100 hours each preparing for so-called case interviews — the favored evaluation method of elite consulting firms such as McKinsey, in which candidates are presented with a business problem and asked to talk through how they would solve the problem.
The struggling fashion retailer Ted Baker has admitted that an accounting error was twice as big as initially thought, leaving it with a £58m hole in its balance sheet.
Technology, business and strategy consulting firm Slalom has opened up shop in Australia, with former Accenture Asia Pacific technology lead Michael Shimota heading up the company’s local operation.
AlixPartners announced that Tom Scampion has joined as a Managing Director. Tom joins the firm’s EMEA Investigations & Compliance Services team. He will be based in AlixPartners’ London office, and together with Guenter Degitz, Managing Director in AlixPartners’ Munich office, will co-lead the firm’s Financial Crime business in EMEA.
PwC, the leading professional services firm, has opened its largest UK regional office as it moves into its landmark new Birmingham home, One Chamberlain Square.
The management consulting sector of the combined countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain is now worth over $3 billion. The size of the market is not necessarily surprising, given the importance placed on tapping external expertise by various large firms across multiple of industry sectors in the region. The growth in management consulting market is getting back on track after the dramatic dip in global oil prices in 2016, where the crash took oil prices to as low as $26.21 per barrel and now in January 2020 tracking at around $58 per barrel. Unsurprisingly, the implication of uncertain oil prices has fuelled investment from local GCC governments to further increase their consultancy spend to diversify across non-oil related sectors which has been further exacerbated by the worsening inter-trade agreements in the Gulf, a predicted contraction in global economic growth fuelled by Brexit and The US-China Trade War, and increasing pressure on natural resources.
TSB has announced a new IT centre in Edinburgh to drive forward digital banking as part of a £120m investment, creating 100 technology jobs.
Foreign insurance companies are expected to expand further into mainland Chinese market as the country removes a cap on foreign ownership and other regulatory hurdles, analysts said.
The process of applying for a job at a top global management consultancy has come a long way since the days of turgid psychometric testing and brutally rigid corporate grading regimes. But big global firms like Accenture and Capco still put potential candidates through a challenging and rigorous recruitment process for management consultancy jobs.
At a time when the majority of the banking industry is trying to adjust business models to reflect a more digital ecosystem, several financial and non-financial organizations in China have already brought together big data, advanced analytics, modern digital technology, and an innovation culture to deliver exceptional consumer experiences. The question is, can financial institutions elsewhere in the world catch up?
The Technology, Media, and Telecom (TMT) practice of Middle East consultancy Strategy& has been given a leadership boost for the new year with two additional partners; Karim Sarkis, who joined the firm at the beginning of 2018 (after an earlier career stint at Strategy& predecessor Booz & Company), and Lancelot Sursock, who returns to Strategy& after spending over a decade with Booz to 2015.
Chicago based Strategy and Operations firm A.T. Kearney is now Kearney as part of the firm’s comprehensive rebrand.
China has unveiled an ambitious plan to establish a nationwide smart power grid employing internet technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence, with the first phase to be completed within two years.
Troubled fashion retailer Ted Baker has drafted in investigators from Deloitte to probe an accounting mishap that saw it overstate the value of its stock by up to £25 million. Deloitte’s probe will run separately from a root-and-branch review of Ted Baker’s operations already being undertaken by fellow consultancy AlixPartners.
I’ve seen it with friends and clients over and over again. After years of frustration fighting red tape and reorganizations in the corporate world, or after receiving the offer of a big severance package, they hear the siren song of being an independent consultant.
Retail sales fell for the first time in 25 years last year, according to the leading UK retail industry body.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said total sales fell 0.1%, marking the first annual sales decline since 1995.
From ocean ports to trucking companies and air freight, three key pillars underpin the next-generation supply chain, according to a recent Deloitte report. These are a connected community, holistic decision-making, and intelligent automation.
KPMG MESA has notched another year of double-digit growth across the region, growing its revenues in 2019 by 11.6 percent.
Continuing our series of procurement and supply chain related predictions for 2020, we have gathered a variety of predictions from leading vendors in the procurement and supply chain market, and will add our own sprinkling of endorsement from analyst Magnus Bergfors
Global consultancy Bain & Company announced today that it has agreed in principle to acquire Qvartz, a leading consulting firm headquartered in Denmark, to capitalize on growth opportunities across the Nordic region. Qvartz and Bain are proceeding on an exclusive basis to finalize the details of the transaction. The consulting expertise of the two firms will combine Qvartz’s local strength and intimate knowledge of the Nordic region with the global reputation and reach of Bain & Company.
